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. 2014 Aug 14;10(4):342–359. doi: 10.1007/s13181-014-0417-0

Table 4.

Reasons for medical toxicology consultation

N (%)
Intentional exposure—pharmaceutical 3,445 (40.1)
Unintentional exposure—pharmaceutical 851 (9.9)
Drug abuse—illicit drug 692 (8.0)
Adverse drug reaction (ADR, undesirable effect of therapeutic drug use) 412 (4.8)
Unintentional exposure—nonpharmaceutical 410 (4.8)
Not documented 361 (4.2)
Intentional exposure—nonpharmaceutical 351 (4.1)
Unidentified agent 272 (3.2)
Drug abuse—prescription drug 266 (3.1)
Organ system dysfunction 256 (3.0)
Withdrawal—ethanol 186 (2.2)
Interpretation of toxicology lab data 154 (1.8)
Alcohol (ethanol) abuse 148 (1.7)
Envenomation—snake 147 (1.7)
Environmental evaluation 143 (1.7)
Withdrawal—opioid 117 (1.4)
Adverse drug event (ADE, medication error resulting in harm) 107 (1.2)
Occupational evaluation 91 (1.1)
Withdrawal—sedative/hypnotic 52 (0.6)
Drug abuse—OTC drug 50 (0.6)
Envenomation—spider 43 (0.5)
Envenomation—scorpion 16 (0.2)
Withdrawal—other 13 (0.2)
Envenomation—other 6 (0.1)
Marine/fish poisoning 6 (0.1)
Withdrawal—cocaine/amphetamine 3 (0.1)